Pretty Ponderous Perspective

I’m happy to say that I’m home from the hospital.  The diagnosis, as you learned from The Husband (a/k/a HOTY a/k/a Husband of the Year) was sinusitis.

Now the good news here  (you knew a Silver Lining was coming!) is that this was not caused by FBC.  Rather, it is likely that because my immune system is shot, I was more susceptible to a cold (which I had) that then progressed into the hellacious sinusitis.

PubMed Health gives a great description of sinusitis: an inflammatory process in the sinuses usually caused by a bacterial, fungal or viral infection that results from an upper respiratory tract infection (which is what I had)

The classic symptoms of acute sinusitis (e.g., bad breath-ewwwww-or lack of smell, cough-often worse at night, fatigue and generally not feeling well, fever, headache, nasal congestion and discharge, and sore throat and postnasal drip) usually follow a cold that does not improve or worsens over a week.

Of course I had every symptom described (of course I did because that’s how I seem to roll these days!).

So, while in the hospital, I had a CT scan of my sinuses which were declared “impressive” (that is a pejorative description, by the way) and a chest X-ray to rule out any gnarly malfunction there.  I also had a boatload of heavy hitting antibiotics, rock star pain meds and creative strategeries to deal with my irregularity issues (it seems that I’m either running toward a toilet or away from one!).

I was discharged today, still feeling rotten and still backed up, however I’m on the path to recovery, which is great (SL).

And can I just say how fabulous the people who cared for me were (SL)?  The nurses, patient care technicians, and even the food service staff of Cottage Hospital were remarkable.  I felt like an absolute train wreck and they treated me with kindness, patience and professionalism, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a long, long time.

You know by now how crazy I am about my doctors (Oncologist, Internist and Palliative Care), all of whom came into my room with sensitivity, calm composure, and the fortitude to get the situation figured out and remedied asap (SL).  I was so beleaguered that I couldn’t even pull myself together enough to lift myself up when they came into the room (which was embarrassing, but I had no choice considering it felt like my head was going to blow up at any given moment, not to mention the room spins!).

This morning, however, my maladies were given a tremendous amount of perspective when I turned on the news to find the devastation that rocked Japan.  Words simply cannot describe the sadness and compassion I felt.  And then watching the news tonight, recognizing just a glimpse of what is yet to be revealed as the magnitude the destruction, put things in great perspective for me.

Yes, I have FBC.  Yes, I felt like holy hell this week. However, there are a whole bunch of bigger and more profound things going on the world.  I am grateful to not be so mired in my misery that I cannot be present and feel tremendous compassion for the Japanese. Watching several hospital scenes took me right to the place of profound sympathy (and gratitude for being in a hospital that was well-staffed, well-trained and well-equipped to care for my pesky thing called sinusitis).

So, I send all the SL’s that the world has to offer to Japan.

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.

– Christopher Reeve